


I found love in the eyes of a boy

by Majsasaurus



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Genre: Am I writing fluff nowadays?, Boyfriends, Coming to terms with ones own sexuality, First Crush, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Mush, Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, Puberty, Self-Touching, it's fluffy at the end, trust me it's cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:13:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24395572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Majsasaurus/pseuds/Majsasaurus
Summary: Experiencing a crush was not really like Inojin had expected it to be. Not when he turned into a grinning fool everytime he thought ofhim.Admitting the crush for himself was hard enough. Confessing would turn out to be much scarier that he ever expected.Because it was Shikadai he had fallen in love with.
Relationships: Nara Shikadai/Yamanaka Inojin
Comments: 14
Kudos: 100





	I found love in the eyes of a boy

**Author's Note:**

> If you recognise my username you know that I love writing angst, but for this exclusive moment I will let the boys have the well-deserved fluff <3
> 
> For Vee.

Inojin stared down at the painting. He shouldn’t be this nervous. This was ridiculous. He shouldn’t be _nervous_ to use his own jutsu, the jutsu he was the best at using.

But still, he was nervous, because he didn’t want to see it fail again. He didn’t want to see the ink break and splatter into stains on the grass. Not again. He didn’t want the brand of a failed shinobi before his career ever got to begin.

“Ninja Art! Super Beast Jutsu!”

The little blue lizard crawled out of the paper and Inojin shuffled backwards as it manifested in the real world. _Yes!_

The second after that, it broke apart. The dark blue ink dripped down the grass and Inojin threw his brush away out of irritation.

_Why doesn’t this work?_

Staring at the empty scroll made him frustrated and he quickly wrapped the scroll up, accidently scrunching the paper, which made him even more frustrated.

“Okay, fine”, he said to himself. “Then I won’t use this dumb jutsu anymore.”

It still did twist and turn inside his stomach and what made him even more frustrated was the fact that his father didn’t even going to help!

 _You have to figure this out yourself,_ he had said. How is Inojin even going to figure it out if he couldn’t even get a single clue on how to overcome this bump in his development. Sometimes, and almost exclusively when he was pissed off, he wondered if his father even ever learned how to communicate properly.

“I’ll just use the Mind Transfer instead”, Inojin said rather nonchalantly when he tossed the scroll inside the box he stored them.

Using the Mind Transfer, when having it still being underdeveloped and having it being _hard_ to perform, turned out to be a disaster.

Humiliating, even.

After having Iwabe in his mental grip for less than ten seconds he was thrown out of his body and that was when he looked up and found himself being cradled by Shikadai. And he was being scolded.

“You haven’t practised that one as much”, Shikadai said, barely keeping his irritation down. “There’s no way you can infuse chakra properly!”

It wasn’t like Inojin already knew this was all a failure from his side, but having Shikadai growling it right in his ear made it all together worse.

He had wanted to impress him. To show him that _hey I’m not as useless as I feel!_ But to hell with that.

Inojin had for a few months now been obsessed with the thought of impressing Shikadai. He liked when Shikadai looked at him, smiled at him and showed his thumb up to him. He treasured the moments when Shikadai would touch his shoulder and say something encouraging to him.

It made him so warm inside, when Shikadai seemed to be happy with Inojin’s skills. Of course Shikadai became happy when Inojin made use of himself, who would want a useless shinobi on his team?

Why had he began printing his beast drawings instead of painting them? That one mistake had turned out to be a costly one and Inojin cringed when thinking about that a failure he had made himself seem.

Shikadai had sounded scolding at him, and just thinking about that made Inojin want to claw his own eyes out, out of embarrassment.

He had just wanted to impress Shikadai with his other jutsu, in order to hide that his primary one had shrunk into pathetic stains on the grass. To show him that Shikadai isn’t the only one with multiple techniques up his sleeves.

But he had just failed and the thought of him failing his team – failing Shikadai – made it hurt inside the pit of his stomach.

He was sulking when his father suggested he entered a drawing contest, he was sulking when his hand moved rather quickly over his canvas when he painted for the contest and he sure as hell felt something that wasn’t happiness for Himawari’s win in the contest.

He was better than her, and he _knew_ it, and yet she had won.

Like his humiliation wasn’t big enough when he asked her to help him to regain his ability to even press a pen against a paper.

 _The painting must has a meaning!_ She had happily explained. _You just paint what makes you happy. That is why I draw._

Inojin had felt somewhat eased when he came home from visiting Himawari. He just has to draw something that makes him happy.

He nestled down in his bed, with a sketchbook open and a lead pencil ready in his hand. He pressed the pen against the paper and wondered what he was going to draw.

What made him really happy?

He began sketching an Ink Bird, but tore the paper out of the sketchbook and began on another painting. He began drawing his parents, but it didn’t really feel right either.

_What makes me happy?_

Mindlessly Inojin drew an eye, an eye with a specific shape along with an eyebrow of a specific shape. He knew those eyes very well. He had drawn Shikadai’s eye.

He began drawing Shikadai.

He didn’t know how it had happened, but along with the pencil strokes came the very warm feeling down in the pit of his stomach and he realised he grinned like an idiot when filling in the details in Shikadai’s face.

This made him happy.

 _Shikadai_ made him happy.

Inojin felt satisfied by the result and after adding one final detail, a light shadow under Shikadai’s lower lip, he remained staring at the lips of the drawing.

All of a sudden, a bizarre thought ran through him.

_I want to kiss them._

Inojin leaned back against the wall, blinking a few times.

_Did I actually think that out loud?_

Yet, when he looked down at the drawing – the drawing he had put a ridiculous amount of time and detail into, he could not but stare at first into Shikadai’s eyes, and then let his gaze fall down onto his lips.

Inojin checked the clock beside his bed, and realized he had worked four hours straight on the drawing. He hadn’t even noticed he was hungry. When was the last time he had totally immersed himself into a drawing so completely?

He walked down the stairs and tried to eat something, and even if he knew he was hungry, it was hard to get food down. His stomach suddenly wanted to feel all other kinds of sparkling feelings than hunger.

“Is something wrong?” Ino asked and Inojin snapped up his head.

“No!” he said too fast for it to be convincing. Ino cocked her head to the side, but her eyes didn’t narrow at him.

“You can talk to me about anything”, she offered.

“No, it’s nothing, seriously”, Inojin tried to chuckle. He forced the food down his throat and almost leapt up to his room again.

The drawing of Shikadai was still there on his bed.

The temptation was too big. Inojin took the drawing and held it up in front of his face.

 _Just because I think about kissing this drawing like a fool doesn’t mean I want to kiss him for real,_ Inojin lied to himself and allowed himself to succumb to this bizarre sudden need.

He kissed the drawing and immediately threw it from his hands when he was finished.

_I am so stupid._

The shame was unreal. He felt his cheeks heat up and his ears turned probably red and he didn’t even know why he reacted to strongly. It just felt wrong wanting to kiss a freaking drawing of your best friend. It wasn’t like he wanted to kiss Shikadai for real.

But when he shut off all lights in his room, ready to fall asleep, he began fantasizing. He fantasized about kissing Shikadai again, for real, and it felt so good inside him to imagine that.

He was wet down there when he woke up.

The idea of not wanting to kiss Shikadai in real life, turned out to be false. Inojin couldn’t believe it, how fast he turned into an idiot in front of Shikadai.

What had been friendship and later the will to just impress Shikadai had turned into a burning crush in the span of one single night and Inojin did his very hardest to hide that fact.

When Shikadai smiled at him, he looked away, and when he thought no one saw, grinned for himself as the butterflies in his belly completely took over his common sense. He became hyper aware of hiding anything that could possibly show his attraction towards his friend.

Looking away didn’t help. It didn’t help when those captivating green eyes sometimes lingered at him for longer than eyes usually linger and Inojin could feel his cheeks burn hot and his skin itch when he knew Shikadai was looking at his neck.

And sometimes, when he was dead sure Shikadai was concentrated at something else, or was too into some story he was telling over the table at the hamburger restaurant, Inojin dared to stare at his lips.

He didn’t really do it on purpose, but his gaze fell more often than not down from looking at Shikadai’s eyes to look down at his mouth instead.

Inojin knew already by heart what Shikadai’s mouth looked like, after secretly studying it. He tried to tell himself it was because he simply was interested in perfecting his drawings. Of Shikadai. He was embarrassed by the increasing pile of secret drawings of Shikadai he now possessed.

So, he hummed and nodded where it was acceptable to nod and hum while Shikadai told his story. He wasn’t really listening. He was looking at Shikadai’s mouth. He looked at his smile, at the tiny dimple he had on his right cheek, at the way his canine teeth were slightly crooked –

All of a sudden those terribly wonderful eyes were looking back at him and Inojin looked immediately down.

Shikadai’s mouth kept babbling, but he threw a sideway glance at Inojin.

It was so shameful. To just sit there and stare and ooze over Shikadai.

At his best friend.

At a boy.

It was that evening when Inojin laid in bed, thinking, because he realised he couldn’t just remain the mess he had been these two months. He had to do something!

Even if it meant to accept _that thing._

After philosophising for half an hour, twenty minutes out of which he kept thinking about Shikadai and how wonderful and sweet he is, Inojin finally slammed his head down back against his pillow and groaned out loud. He threw an arm over his eyes, as if trying to hide from himself.

_Okay, just admit it._

_Just say it._

_Just say it once._

“I’m attracted to boys”, Inojin finally whispered out into the darkness of his room. “I – I want to kiss boys.”

_I want to kiss Shikadai. Heck, I am in love with Shikadai._

He sneaked down into the living room in the middle of the night, where his family’s big bookshelf was. His parents were asleep and Inojin moved softly, over the floor over to the bookshelf. He knew that his father still kept weird books over human behaviour and other stuff Inojin hadn’t cared enough to look into, and he was sure that Sai must have a book about love somewhere.

Inojin flashed with the flashlight over the spines of the books. Most of them were about friendship, or parenthood.

_“How to bond with your baby”_

_“How to form meaningful friendships”_

And then finally he found a quite thick book.

_“Human attraction 101 – Fifth Edition”_

Inojin took down the book from the shelf and quickly made his way upstairs. It felt like someone was watching him, when he hid beneath his blanket as he flipped through the book under the lights from the flashlight, to one of the final chapters in the book.

_Homosexuality and bisexuality_

His heart began beating faster when he read the words and his mouth turned dry when he read the short chapter about that kind of love. It was so little, so few paragraphs, compared with the thickness of the book.

All other kind of love, the _normal_ love, got so much coverage. Long chapters about the phycological and physical part, along with the naughty stuff Inojin quickly skipped, because he wasn’t ready to look at those kinds of illustrations yet.

But the same-sex attraction, _his_ kind of attraction, had gotten so little page space.

“It’s because it’s wrong”, Inojin mumbled for himself.

_I’m a freak. Freak. Freak._

The process of acceptance was painful, but short. Inojin didn’t have the best of self-confidence to begin with, something he hid pretty well by offering snarky remarks to his friends. Sometimes he insulted his classmates because it felt good to put them beneath himself. It was a shortcut to better, though fake, self-confidence.

There was however a huge downside to this.

“That was completely unnecessary, Inojin”, Shikadai said after Inojin had with a fake smile said something that was rather hurtful to one of his classmates.

Inojin looked down.

“Yeah, yeah”, he said.

“Look at me”, Shikadai said with a hard, cold voice and Inojin forced himself to meet Shikadai’s terribly beautiful eyes. “Don’t say stuff like that again. It’s not nice calling people gay as if that was an insult.”

Because Inojin had gone the lowest low with his stupid hurtful comment and he felt shame immediately crawl over his face.

“Sorry”, he said.

“You know, people… can’t change that stuff”, Shikadai said. “It’s like you would insult me because of my hair colour or something. So don’t insult people because of who they may or may not like. And I know that guy has a girlfriend.”

Inojin bit down on his lower lip, because he was so, so ashamed of what he had said.

_It’s because I’m feeling like this. It’s because I’m like that and I don’t know if I want to feel like this._

He didn’t dare to say anything else than offer a sorry again. Shikadai took a deep breath.

“I don’t want to hear you say that again”, he said. “It could be hurtful to some.”

That was the moment Inojin decided that he _has_ to come out at some point. He can’t keep bottling this inside himself, not for much longer. Not when this crush on Shikadai is burning right through him.

Shikadai will probably think he is a freak as well. Because Shikadai is so good looking and tall and has that wonderful voice, meaning every girl is after him. Inojin knows Sumire has a crush on him. Shikadai would probably want to be with her one day. Or with any other girl.

He made the decision to come up with a strategy once he had cleared his mind. Shikadai was leaving for Suna for a few days, so Inojin could clear his mind in peace without having those eyes and that mouth to drool over.

When Shikadai left, it had been so casual. Just a lazy wave at his friend when he had walked towards the train station with his parents, and Inojin had watched his back until it completely disappeared behind the corner.

 _I am such a mess,_ Inojin thought to himself as his heart sank in his chest. _This can’t keep going on._

Clearing his head while Shikadai was away didn’t exact go as he planned.

This was Inojin’s first time experience a crush at this multitude. This was the first time he felt a desire to be with someone else that badly.

And in the darkness in his room, under his covers, he wanted to feel something good. His hand was slightly shivering when he touched himself without looking. He didn’t think it was anything bad. It was just him wanting to explore himself, he thought. It was innocent. It was part of going through puberty. Of coming of age.

And it felt nice.

He didn’t have a grand masterplan of confessing when Shikadai came back. Instead he just played it cool, forced himself to not stare at Shikadai’s lips. It was actually easier this time around, but that was mainly because Shikadai behaved weirdly. He wasn’t his normal happy self, but more reserved and visibly stressed.

Inojin knew something had happened but couldn’t bring himself to prying it out of his friend. He later regretted not forcing Shikadai to tell the truth, because something was obviously wrong and he learned that when Shikadai didn’t show up to their training like he should.

That awful feeling was churning in Inojin’s stomach and he yearned for Shikadai. All he wanted was to see him there, normal and happy and smiling, but Shikadai hadn’t showed up and Inojin knew something had happened. Why hadn’t he asked Shikadai earlier, demanded a truth?

He wouldn’t maybe have reacted that way if it was any other friend, if it was Chocho, or Sarada or Boruto or anyone not showing up, but now, because it was _Shikadai,_ he lost his cool.

He became obsessed with thinking about where Shikadai had gone, and it was only when he had forced Moegi to go looking for him, and she had gotten word that Shikadai was safe, but wasn’t going to be joining training.

As if that would calm Inojin down! He had had the chance to ask and maybe help Shikadai with whatever he was going through or talk about what had happened, _anything!_ But no, he didn’t, because he was a chicken. A weak, useless friend with a foolish crush.

He decided that when Shikadai was okay again, no matter what had happened, he was going to do something about this. Maybe confess. Maybe just come out.

Something.

Inojin didn’t really get a chance to confess. When he met Shikadai for the first time after the incident he had been involved in, he had gotten the news that either the whole of Team 10 must take on low-stake mission for a month, because Shikadai had been punished for actions he had taken during the incident, or Shikadai would be put off missions completely and Inojin and Chocho would continue with missions without him for the incoming month.

“We are not abandoning him”, Inojin had said, too hurried and too eagerly for it to sound like anything else than him caring so much – too much – about Shikadai. “I’m not doing missions without him.”

Chocho and Moegi agreed luckily, even if Chocho’s calculation gaze lingered on Inojin for a little while longer than normally. Inojin almost began blushing when he realised she was watching him like that. It felt weird being looked at in that way.

Shikadai and him had decided to meet up on a hill, and Shikadai seemed embarrassed. Mostly because he had messed up earlier and was now being punished, but Inojin didn’t push him to tell more about that issue.

Shikadai seemed overjoyed to hear that his teammates were not going to let him be unemployed for the month just so they could get more interesting missions. And he was looking at Inojin at a different way that before and it made Inojin’s stomach do amazing, horrible things.

And then something Inojin hadn’t ever imagined would happen, happened.

Shikadai blushed while looking down as he spoke.

“So… thanks”, he finished off a rather long rant. Then he leaned forward and kissed Inojin on the cheek, and immediately after that, jumped down the hill.

Inojin couldn’t believe what was happening. Shikadai had _kissed him_ on the cheek. He looked down the hill, at Shikadai with his hands deep in his pocket and a redness coving his face.

“Hey, you can’t do that and just leave!” Inojin shouted down the hill to Shikadai, who shifted uneased weight from foot to foot.

“If you didn’t like it, pretend it never happened”, Shikadai said and his voice was shaking of a nervous laughter.

“I did like it, you fool!” Inojin responded, completely overtaken by butterflies in his belly.

“See you tomorrow, Inojin.” Shikadai smiled at him and left.

When he had left Inojin felt how shaky his knees were. He had to sit down on the rock surface of the hill, grinning for himself like an idiot.

Shikadai had kissed him on the cheek. That had to mean something, right? Maybe… maybe Shikadai liked him back?

It took Inojin many minutes before he mustered strength in his legs to go home again. He kept grinning and smiling and it felt so good in his stomach. He couldn’t almost sleep that night, and kept repeating the situation in his head, over and over again, trying to recreate the sensation of Shikadai’s lips against his skin.

Shikadai liked him maybe back!

Ino wondered why he was so tired the following morning, and all the fatigue Inojin felt from staying up so late disappeared as soon as Ino leaned forward over the table, leaning against her palm with curious eyes lingering on her son.

“It’s nothing”, Inojin quickly said, hiding behind his fringe.

“Okay”, Ino said, but it didn’t sound convincing at all. It was like she knew and it made Inojin nervous.

Meeting Shikadai for the first time since that kiss was not what Inojin had expected. Somehow, he imagined there would be a grand spectacular love confession, but when he looked up in Shikadai’s eyes and then quickly looked away again he couldn’t find the courage no matter how hard he tried to find it.

Shikadai’s voice felt slightly shivering when they talked and Chocho didn’t seem to care about the gigantic elephant in the room when she dug for the crumbs of chips at the very bottom of her bag of chips.

Chocho couldn’t be here if things were going to move forward.

Inojin wanted to ask so badly about that kiss. To ask Shikadai if he really meant it. If he really wanted to kiss for real.

But it was not easy being thirteen and knowing the love you felt was the wrong kind of love and knowing that the person you felt so strongly for was your best friend. And Inojin didn’t want to ruin whatever was between them. Even if the only thing he had was just a tiny, naïve string of hope that maybe, just maybe, Shikadai also liked him back.

So when Shikadai, finally, after close to a month of side looking and weird apologetic smiles and almost touching Inojin’s hand while walking as if that had been an invite to holding hands, asked Inojin if they could meet just the two of them, Inojin decided that he was not leaving before asking Shikadai about that kiss and how serious he was about it.

Shikadai had gotten a fan since he last saw him.

“I got this”, Shikadai said to lighten the tense mood between them and opened the fan to demonstrate it. “I’m still not really used to it, so I’ve got to practise before I can incorporate it into our Ino-Shika-Cho formation.”

“Wow, cool”, Inojin said and suddenly he is not interested in Shikadai’s new weapon because there were more urgent matters to talk about. “Hey… Shikadai. Remember when you kissed me on the cheek? What did you mean by it?”

Did he finally manage to say those words? After a month of avoiding the subject and just grin at his own feet when thinking about it? His throat tightened and he looked desperately down. It should seriously not be this hard.

“Uh, yeah”, Shikadai said. “That. Um. I… didn’t talk about it because I was nervous.”

“I am nervous too”, Inojin said, prompting Shikadai to continue.

“It felt weird at first… all these feelings”, Shikadai said.

“What feelings?” Inojin asked, and his heart was beating fast. Shikadai looked quickly away before clearing his throat and shyly retake eye contact.

“Feelings”, Shikadai said. “Like… more than a best friend way.”

Inojin stared at him.

“And I kissed you on the cheek because I wanted to”, Shikadai said. “I hope that was okay.”

“It was”, Inojin said. “Would you… like to do it again?” Shikadai let out a nervous chuckle as he nodded and it felt like Inojin melted.

Instead of answering Shikadai closed his eyes as Inojin rose on his tiptoes and closed the space between their lips.

It felt so natural.

Inojin didn’t know how long their kiss lasted, since time had stopped. Shikadai’s lips felt smoother than anything Inojin had imagined.

It felt like heaven.

Finally, Inojin pulled away, looking up into the most beautiful eyes he knew.

“How long?” Inojin asked. “How long have you wanted to do that?”

Shikadai seemed dazed, just blinking at Inojin for a second before regaining his sanity.

“Um”, he chuckled nervously. “A few months now?”

He reached for Inojin’s hand, looking down at it as his thumb rubbed gently back and forth over the back of Inojin’s hand. He looked up again, eyes yearning for a reaction.

“Are you scared?” he asked gently. Inojin nodded. “It’s okay. I’ve been scared too.”

“It’s weird”, Inojin whispered as he took a step closer and let the side of his face rest against Shikadai’s shoulder. Shikadai wrapped his arms around Inojin. “I have got a crush on you, Shikadai. For a long time now. And it burns me.”

“It’s okay”, Shikadai mumbled against Inojin’s hair. He gently pushed Inojin so they could look at each other. “Do you know what you do when you got a burning crush?”

Inojin shook his head. Shikadai usually had good answers to difficult questions. Maybe he had a good solution.

“You kiss them”, Shikadai said and kissed Inojin slowly, gently, as if he was afraid to apply too much pressure. “Like that. Does it help?”

Inojin giggled and hid behind his fringe again. He was probably red as a tomato in the face and he rubbed his cheek in a try to hide it.

“Yes”, he said. “I just… I didn’t know you… liked boys too.”

Shikadai bit the inside of his cheek before nodding.

“I do”, he admitted.

Suddenly, Inojin was reminded of that one insult he had thrown out, the insult about boy who like other boys, the one he had so ignorantly said in front of Shikadai, and he realised he had hurt Shikadai with what he had said.

Oh, the shame.

“I’m sorry”, he just blurted. Shikadai’s eyebrows knitted together.

“Why are you sorry?” he asked.

“For saying that stupid thing…” Inojin mumbled. “About… boys like us.”

“Ah”, Shikadai said. “Yes… it was kinda stupid of you.”

Overwhelmed by shame Inojin just pressed his forehead against Shikadai’s shoulder.

“Sorry”, he mumbled. “I didn’t know that you… were also…”

“Inojin”, Shikadai said. “Let’s not think about that. Let’s think about this instead. Us. Like… I like you and you like me, right? Do you want to try things with me? Because – because I would like to try things with you. If it’s okay.”

Inojin nodded, a smile breaking through.

“I would like to kiss you again”, Inojin said and so they did.

Coming to terms with your own sexuality in puberty is a tricky thing. It is tricky hiding a secret relationship when you feel the sticky feeling of wrongness as you hide behind bushes and corners to place a shy kiss on the nose or mouth of the person you so badly want to call your boyfriend, but you don’t really dare to say it out loud.

One day when they would sit casually on Shikadai’s bed, lazily spending time gaming on either’s game console, only with their legs tangled together as a way of showing non-verbal affection, Inojin would look up and just stare at Shikadai’s concentrated gaze as he looked down on his game console, and Inojin would just loose himself inside those eyes.

 _I found love right there,_ he thought, grinning like an idiot. Soon enough Shikadai realised he was being stared at and he returned the gaze. He smiled.

“Why are you so cute?” he asked.

“Pfft”, Inojin replied, unsure how to answer in any other way. Shikadai just continued to look at him.

“Did you know your eyes are amazing?” he asked then and Inojin blinked.

“Huh?”

“Nothing”, Shikadai said and returned his attention to the game, but his mouth wouldn’t stop grinning.

“You can’t take back that”, Inojin said.

“Okay, okay, fine!” Shikadai said and placed the console away, shifting his position so he could reach up and place his forehead against Inojin’s. “I said that your eyes are… I don’t know how to say it. Wonderful. Beautiful. That stuff.”

Inojin snorted out of a laugh.

“You are so not good at being fluffy”, he said, but didn’t get a chance to add anything to it before Shikadai pressed his lips against Inojin’s.

“Make me better at being fluffy then”, he said when he moved away from Inojin’s face.

“You’re cute when you’re grumpy.”

“I’m _not_ grumpy”, Shikadai laughed.

They heard a noise outside and Shikadai scrambled himself quickly at a good distance away and fell quiet while listening to the soft footsteps outside.

“Do you think she heard us?” Shikadai asked as he thought he had located Temari’s steps into the kitchen.

Inojin listened.

“I don’t think so”, he said. “Do you think she would be mad if she found out?”

“I don’t know”, Shikadai said. “But I won’t tell them yet. Maybe after I come back from Suna.”

Inojin pinched his lips together when he thought about Shikadai’s incoming travel to Suna in a week. He would stay there for two weeks. Inojin didn’t know how he would overcome his longing for Shikadai during those fourteen days.

“We should come out”, Inojin mumbled. “But I don’t know if I want to yet.”

Shikadai took his hand.

“Hey, we keep this a secret as long as we want to”, he said and smiled gently to the boy he badly wanted to call his boyfriend, but hadn’t had the courage to ask and to finalise their relationship. “We can tell them when we’re ready.”

“I just wish we could like… kiss outside and not have to hide this all the time”, Inojin admitted. “I would just want to finally not have to hide that hey, I like boys and always have, please just accept me as I am.”

“I accept you as you are”, Shikadai responded immediately.

“I know”, Inojin said.

“We can tell them when I come home again after my mission in Suna”, Shikadai suggested.

“Yeah…” Inojin said. He fell silent as he mulled over to ask his following question. “Are you afraid?”

“Of what?”

“Of telling people”, Inojin said. “Of coming out.” Shikadai looked down, tongue moving inside his mouth as he thought.

“I guess I am”, Shikadai said slowly. “Because I know dad will be disappointed.”

“You think he will be?” Inojin asked.

Shikadai just nodded.

“But I don’t care”, he quickly said. “I don’t care what he says, because it is just what it is and I don’t think I will change – probably not. And… I won’t stop doing this.”

He bent forward and silently, as silently as he possibly could, kissed Inojin again.

“What is the best thing in this situation then?” Inojin asked. “We have been hiding us for like six months already.”

“The best thing in the situation?” Shikadai mused. “Because even is this kinda sucks, that this is a secret, that we’re still in the closet… the best thing in this situation is you. That I get to kiss you. That I get to look into your eyes and don’t have to look away.”

Inojin laughed at him.

“I knew you could be sappy”, he teased.

“Damn it”, Shikadai said. “Okay, I can be sappy for you, exclusively.”

“I can live with that”, Inojin said.

It is tricky coming to terms with your own sexuality. But it would always, _always,_ be easier when you got the boy you so badly wanted to call your boyfriend there by your side, kissing you, stroking your hair and whispering _Inojin… you are the best thing I know._

**Author's Note:**

> Did I make it? Did it become fluffy? 😇 Let me know what you think!
> 
> Because I am _that_ author who loves to connect her works into one great narrative:
> 
> If you want to know the story of what Shikadai was up to when he became punished as well as read a bit of his path of falling in love with Inojin (mostly implied), that is in my fic Shadows and Sand.
> 
> If you want to know the story how they came out to their families and during which circumstances, that is in my fic To go down with the Sun.
> 
> And soon I will clutter the Shikajin-tag with my next long-fic featuring these boys. See you then!


End file.
